August 2025

What The Magnus Archives characters would do with “The Sims” headcanons

Jon - Jon gets stuck on the character design section. He ends up being worried about the Sim’s outfit going together and then he’s super indecisive about hairstyles and accessories. He end’s up being overwhelmed immediately.

Martin - Martin makes a sim couple with the intent of having very mundane gameplay. However, everything somehow spirals and he ends up with one of his sim’s mass collecting everything there is to find in the world and his other Sim making non-stop cups of tea to get rid of that stupid caffeine crash moodlet.

Tim - Tim makes himself then gets into antics. Sometimes he wohoo’s the entire town. Sometimes he tries to max out skills that he’ll probably never take up in real life. Sometimes he works more normal jobs for catharsis.

Sasha - Sasha plays with mod’s. She has so many on her computer that it runs hotter than a car engine, but her favorite is her mod settings menu. She’s practical about sorting her unhinged mods like that.

Melanie - Ironically, Melanie really likes Supernatural gameplay even after everything that went down with The Institute. She really likes playing as a witch or a werewolf and then having them have insane encounters like getting abducted by aliens or planting a plant sim.

Georgie - Georgie always starts out with the mindset of “I’m going to make a Sim and play them normally,” then within 30 minutes she’s enabled every cheat in the game because she gets bored with mundane gameplay. So what if she wants to make her Sim a millionaire who can afford everything in the game ten times over?

Basira - Basira is always doing some kind of challenge. Whether it’s a legacy run or a zombie apocalypse challenge she always enjoys the game the most when it has a clear set of rules.

Daisy - Daisy is a completionist. She has to collect all the things, and max out all the skills, and earn the rewards, and work all the jobs, and earn enough money naturally in the game to buy all the things. She takes The Sims very seriously.

Peter - Peter makes a version of the apartment complex he wanted to build and lives out the dream that Gertrude killed. That is, until Gertrude finds out what he’s doing on the game and calls the papers again to tell them that Peter is doing a “trial run” of his plan. Thus, the think pieces start up again.

Elias - Elias can’t play The Sims for more than a few hours without getting bored and making a whole new story and starting a whole new life. He’s never played the game for an entire Sim’s lifetime.

Gertrude - When The Sims was first released in the year 2000 Gertrude was the first person to realize that you can drown a Sim by removing the ladder. She’s used The Sim’s plenty to plot some of her most impressive fear related takedowns.

Gerard - He makes a little sim family and then plays a shockingly mundane game of their day to day. It seems like normal gameplay at first, but the more you think about the more you’ll be convinced he needs therapy.

Michael - Michael Shelley likes to make things in build mode. He spends hours making little houses and perfecting cozy rooms that he’d love to inhabit. Distortion Michael likes to build too. Though in a different way. It likes to make confusing, uninhabitable, hallways for his Sims to traverse through.

Some Random Magnus Archive Headcanon’s

A: Michael Shelley had visual snow syndrome, which is a condition that makes you see static. It got worse when he became The Distortion.

B: After the apocalypse Rosie Zampano tries to use her limited (but still more than most) knowledge on Elias and The Institute to help people make sense of things. Any time she comes cross someone that’s frazzled she tells me as much as she can…and before long it becomes widely know that Rosie Zampano was the apocalypses secretary. This actually launches her into a bit of a fame and she get’s quite a few “tell all” offers in the form of book deals and interview offers. Though she’s very hesitant on whether she wants to take any of them.

C: The Admiral is a manx. And I headcanon this because the manx breed was popular as ship cat due to their skilled hunting abilities…So that adds another layer to his name.

D: Gerard Keay has missing and chipped teeth on the side of his mouth from running straight into a wall while chasing someone with a Leitner.

E: Agnes Montague didn’t even like coffee, but she was so unsure of as a person that she wasn’t totally sure what drinks she liked. Most of her life was a performance, just doing she thought others wanted her to be doing, and her food and drink “preferences” were one of those things. She would loved hot chocolate.

F: Melanie’s style takes a lot of inspiration from the 80’s grunge aesthetic. She also really likes 80’s new wave music.

G: Gertrude Robinson has massive burn scars all over her body from The Desolation ritual. And bonus headcanon about The Desolation ritual: It gave her fire resistance. She can still still get burned but it takes more to burn her than the usual person.

H: Jon’s hands are chronically cold. Martin’s hands are chronically warm.

I: Danny Stoker still made mix tapes. He made a lot of them on his travels and when he returned home he would give some personally crafted ones to his friends and family. Tim keeps his in a box on his dresser.

J: Anabelle Cane was the one responsible for posting the tapes to YouTube in-universe. It wasn’t necessarily her who posted it, but she had…contingency plans to make sure the new universe knew what they were getting into.

Gerrymichal but Michael thinks it’s hilarious to joke that he’s dating a cryptid and has made one too many people wonder if he’s dating a vampire.

Doorkeay but Gerard keeps half-heartedly trying to rationalize to wait staff why his boyfriend just turned a spoon into a top hat in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

Overall I prefer the concept that Michael Shelley knew something was going on in The Institute even if he didn’t know the details like everyone. However, I do find the concept that he’s just THAT unaware really funny.

Emma keeps coming in with a clump of cobwebs in her hair and Michael wonders to himself how he can gift a coworker anti-dandruff shampoo without coming across as rude.

Eric’s intimidating girlfriend keeps showing up to get him for dates with red on her hands, and Michael’s super excited about it because she’s clearly a painter and Eric would be great with someone creative.

Fiona keeps being brought back to The Institute passed out, and each time Michael just dims the lights and throws a blanket over her because the poor women clearly isn’t getting enough sleep. There’s one time he almost asks if she’s alright, but he doesn’t want to be nosey and pry.

James (Jonah) mentions a detail about Michael’s weekend that he didn’t bring up on his own, and Michael feels self-conscious because he must be REALLY predictable if James can guess the events of his off-time so well even despite the fact that weekend was the first time he went rock-climbing.

Gertrude comes back to the office surrounded by smoke and carrying a lighter in her hand. Michael is upset by the sight and almost says something about it, but then he thinks to himself “At her age a smoke isn’t so bad I suppose. As long as it doesn’t become a habit.” Then he goes back to filing statements thinking about the future “No Smoking” intervention he might have to throw at his job.

TMA characters but it’s just media that I’ve hyperfixated on before that I think they’d like:

RIP Jonathan Sims, you would have loved “Marble Hornets.”

RIP Martin Blackwood, you would have loved “Undertale.”

RIP Tim Stoker, you would have loved “Date Everything.”

RIP Sasha James, you would have loved “Gravity Falls.”

RIP Basira Hussain, you would have loved “Squid Games.”

RIP Daisy Tonner, you would have loved “The Wolf Amoung Us.”

RIP Georgie Barker, you would have loved “Scooby Doo.”

RIP Melanie King, you would have loved “Telltale’s Batman.” / RIP Melanie King, you would have loved “Bojack Horseman.”

RIP Gertrude Robinson, you would have loved “World Of Zoo.”

RIP Gerard Keay, you would have loved “Supernatural.”

RIP Michael Shelley, you would have loved the “Life Is Strange” franchise.

RIP Annabelle Cane, you would have loved “The Sims.”

Gerrymichael AU where Gerard and Michael are trying to keep their relationship private from The Institute since Gerard is aware of all the ways the fears could use it to their advantage.

Which goes poorly.

Michael is a chronic talker and over explainer. All it takes is Emma asking him ONCE why he’s not doing over time as often for him to break and admit that he’s seeing someone. When she asks who he resists for only a few seconds before crumbling under her curious stare and guilt about lying. He says that he’s seeing a “goth guy” but can’t say names for privacy reasons. Not that it matters when everyone has noticed that Gerard keeps popping into The Institute for “no real reason.”

Then meanwhile Gerard has never thought about the words coming out of his mouth a day in his life and has verbally admitted to dating Michael on five different occasions without even fully realizing it.

So yeah. Gerrymichael AU where they think they’re in a secret romance while everyone and their Mother knows.